


Like static screen

by handholding (hoesthetic)



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Drabble, Human Wonwoo, M/M, ghost soonyoung, themes of death but no character death since soonyoung is a ghost already, this isnt very happy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-22
Updated: 2018-07-22
Packaged: 2019-06-14 10:51:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15387174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hoesthetic/pseuds/handholding
Summary: Wonwoo parts his lips and tries to suppress the blooming inside his chest, hoping it’ll die out in the darkness beneath his sternum where the sunlight doesn’t reach.





	Like static screen

 

He has his hands folded in his own lap, sitting cross-legged on the old squeaking couch of his living room. Wonwoo has heard before that he has attentive eyes, a focused stare, so he tries to execute that now too, although he isn’t sure if it’s pressuring rather than encouraging. 

He isn’t a great speaker, tongue holding back some things he would like to say, but won’t. Wonwoo is sitting there, pulling his fingers into loose fists, stopping himself from ripping the stray strings of the hem of his t-shirt. Hoarding broken things, such as clothes with rips and old edges. Such as Soonyoung, although you cannot own a person, but then, it’s another question itself whether Soonyoung is a person. An individual, at least. You can’t own that. 

Washed out to the background, consisting of a bookshelf and a desk with clutter on it, Soonyoung is blurred lines and cold shades, but he doesn’t look cold. Wonwoo thinks he would be a warm person, both physically and emotionally, someone who radiates warmth, when Wonwoo, despite having warm hands, is someone whose energy is rather chilly. So he has heard. If it’s true or not, he isn’t sure if he wants to hear. He believes it, still. 

Soonyoung is grinning at him brightly, mischievously. He never looks sad. Wonwoo knows looks aren’t a reliable source, nothing is ever as it seems, which is rather bittersweet. He bites on his inner lip, wants to look away, wants to get up, wants to stop dealing with things like this. Wonwoo can’t have the things he wants, most of the time. 

“You… you’re dead.”

Sometimes he is clattering pots and static screen, even after everything. Soonyoung isn’t the one to fade into the background and be painfully invisible to the point no one knows he is there, but loud noises and disturbing imaginary that reminds Wonwoo more of bad horror movies rather than his own house. But he has found a home within the chaos Soonyoung likes to cause, despite initially being the one to adore silence and peace.

“You’re alive?” Soonyoung humours him. 

A ghost, something that’s dead but seems to be alive. There’s so many things Wonwoo would like to ask him, things such as how did he end up like this, why can’t he move on, why and how and for what. What is the point of this all? What does this mean? 

Why would he, a ghost, the shadow of yesterday, make Wonwoo feel this way? He isn’t lonely, he has friends, colleagues, acquaintances, so it’s not about the last options to find comfort within someone. How can someone so washed out be so vivid and real that it makes Wonwoo’s stomach lurch. 

“Yeah,” he mumbles, forgetting where he was going with his point anyway. Soonyoung knows he is dead, despite Wonwoo suspecting that he doesn’t remember why he is, or how it happened, but of course he doesn’t know. These things, they don’t have explanations, reasonings, they just happen and Wonwoo can pray—or hope—for the best. 

Wonwoo takes a hold of his own hand with his another, holding it when he can’t hold Soonyoung’s. _ I want to touch you,  _ he wants to say, _ I want to hold you, why can’t you be real? _ But he is real, or maybe he isn’t and this is just a trick of Wonwoo’s own mind because nothing can prove it to be reality, no concrete evidence, just the view before his eyes, the tightness in his throat.

“You look so sad,” Soonyoung decides to say. Wonwoo licks his lips. Is he sad? Possibly. Ruthlessly miserable, perhaps. He lets out a strangled noise from the back of his throat, and Soonyoung tilts his head, eyes curious. Wonwoo thinks his eyes were brown, maybe dark or maybe amber, but he can’t tell through the greenish blue tint casted over him, just to remind him that all of this, it’s pointless when it comes to love. 

Love. 

“Do I?” Wonwoo laughs softly, hoping it doesn’t sound sad, when it, admittedly, probably does. If he closes his eyes, covers his ears, nothing will remain. If he closes his eyes, pictures something completely different, like fields stretching out for miles, their golden ground and the rays of sunshine, what will prove this to be anything else but a show. The butt of a practical joke. The Truman Show. Who, who, who could be so cruel to plant these feelings inside Wonwoo towards someone who can never be enough. 

“Yes. Are you sad?” Soonyoung talks with this edge to his voice, like he knows things, like he has seen things, like it’s roughed up and grainy but in the same time, awfully soft. He talks like he knows, but he also doesn’t, as in he is curious to the point he will die if he doesn’t hear the truth. Which is ironic, but it could also be a misjudgement from Wonwoo’s side, since Soonyoung isn’t just his perception and portrayal, but something more. (But if a tree falls in the woods, and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?)

Wonwoo realizes he doesn’t know how to answer his question. 

“Maybe,” he settles for, “I don’t know.” 

How do you say these things? When Wonwoo doesn’t want to lie, he doesn’t want to tell the potentially hurting truth either, that because Soonyoung is, well, dead, this will never end up like Wonwoo wants it to. He is so selfish, but everyone is, even the most altruistic man. The heart wants selfish things, it’s in its nature, in his mind, at least. Does it make any sense?

Soonyoung looks at him very carefully. 

“How come you don’t know?” He asks. 

_ (Wonwoo met Soonyoung on a very rainy evening. It was after a few nights he had settled into his new apartment, still unfamiliar and strange. The rattling sound filling the space, Wonwoo was positive it sprang from the harsh wind outside, before walking into the kitchen and seeing Soonyoung sitting there, on the counter, legs hanging off the edge, swaying them like an excited child, hitting the cabinet door.  _

_ Someone who doesn’t believe in the paranormal gets panicky, in disbelief and fear, and that applied to Wonwoo as well. Soonyoung looked at him with eyes narrow yet so round, as in happy to see someone, like he has been lonely, alone, for so long he had forgotten how to act.  _

_ “You can see me?” he asked. Wonwoo’s response was a pained moan from his throat, blood running cold, shutting his eyes to tell himself, there’s nothing there, just to open them to see Soonyoung looking at him curiously. He repeated it multiple times, but Soonyoung didn’t move, didn’t leave, didn’t vanish.  _

_ “I’m Soonyoung,” he told him anyway, despite Wonwoo’s probably obvious horror, “If you can see me, I wanna be your friend.”) _

“I just… I just don’t,” Wonwoo says, looking down to his hands, doing hand-things, holding one another. The epitome of loneliness. He bites his lip. Sometimes Wonwoo dreams about a different world, where he meets Soonyoung in a coffee shop instead, or maybe they’re neighbours, or childhood friends, anything but this. 

_ (In one of these dreams, they’re standing in the middle of a highway, the sky looks both orange and navy blue in the same time, and Soonyoung is wearing a bright red denim jacket instead of the colourless blocky windbreaker. His hair is jet black, the wind making it move in delicate motions, framing his face beautifully. They get fuzzy after some time, the memories of these dreams, but Wonwoo couldn’t forget the way his chest feels. It’s impossible. But Soonyoung, who he is, is impossible.) _

“Oh,” Soonyoung makes a sound, “I hope you stop being sad then.” Even though Wonwoo didn’t even admit to being sad—is he sad?

_ (Sometimes, the dreams he has are more grotesque, and if it’s a highway, then there’s a laying body, and the denim is painted in red rather than dyed. It’s always cold but windless, and the smell of urine and rotten is overwhelming. Sometimes there’s bathtubs in inconvenient places, sometimes Wonwoo is running, and he doesn’t know what he is running from and Soonyoung isn’t even there but somehow it still feels connected.) _

Instead of arguing back and telling him that he isn’t sad, no, not really, Wonwoo just smiles softly down to his lap and shakes his head before lifting his gaze. Soonyoung looks gentle—Wonwoo wants to kiss him, but even his lips have the glow of something more transparent, and if Wonwoo touches him, his hand will fall through, and Soonyoung won’t feel anything. 

“Thank you,” Wonwoo murmurs. A part of him wants to apologize instead of thanking him but the way Soonyoung’s face lights up once again doesn’t make him regret saying it. 

Wonwoo clenches his hands, as in not to reach out and touch. Touch what? The air, of course. He doesn’t know if Soonyoung sees him just as some company to fulfill the emptiness of his time, just a friend, or something more, but what Wonwoo knows is that it doesn’t really matter, after all. 

Soonyoung shifts around on the couch, his windbreaker rustling like it’s real fabric and not a shadow, looking a bit hesitant before standing up. Even the way he moves is fluid, effortless, and it fascinates Wonwoo to the point where he can’t stop looking. It’s stupid to keep his hopes up—he tries not to, but it’s so _hard—_ because he knows it’s a story waiting for its end. They are that story, unwritten, vanished, never there. 

Like spelled out, looking at Soonyoung right now, it hits him like waves that there really won’t be a happy ending for this. Wonwoo parts his lips and tries to suppress the blooming inside his chest, hoping it’ll die out in the darkness beneath his sternum where the sunlight doesn’t reach. Soonyoung looks at him, and for once, Wonwoo can’t tell what he is thinking. 

He wants to know. Wonwoo wants to know his mind and memories and the reason why he is wandering around the small apartment of his, why he never unzips the windbreaker and if he even can, what are the stains on his jeans, is it dirt or something more. Wonwoo wants to know why he can see him, why the previous resident couldn’t, and he wants to know what all of this means. It doesn’t mean anything. He wants to know, still. Looking for answers when there’s none. 

“Don’t look at me like you’ve seen a ghost,” Soonyoung laughs, nasally. It’s a tasteless pun, told with glimmer in his eyes, and Wonwoo tries to crack a smile. It feels like bones that are cracking instead. It hurts. 

“That’s what you are,” Wonwoo says it like the fact it is, and Soonyoung looks lost for a brief second, tilting his head again. He does that a lot. Then he grins and salutes. Something withers in Wonwoo’s chest. He intertwines his fingers again, not to pray, but just to hold something, something at all. 

Wonwoo leans back on the couch, the small of his back meeting the armrest. Briefly, it passed through his mind, if something is going to ruin him, it might as well just be Soonyoung. But the thought is gone as quick as it arrived. He just hopes, begs, pleads, prays that something will remain, that in a few years Soonyoung isn’t just a forgotten, dusted memory. 

Something complex is choking him. Wonwoo closes his eyes, and when he opens them, it’s like Soonyoung was never there. 

He is, talking on the other side of the couch, still standing, Wonwoo not facing him, but his presence is felt in his bones. He can’t tell what he is saying through the sinking feeling in his chest and static sounds in his ears, because everyone knows sadness comes in waves. Is he sad? Miserable would be a better word. 

And another thought, if Soonyoung wanted to—not that he does, most likely—Wonwoo would let him ruin him, open him up and twist him around. Perhaps he attracts hurtful things, just like he hoards broken objects, or maybe it’s a curse. (Just a pointless one, just something with no meaning.) The feeling just repeats, a cycle of realizations that ends up to the same thing everytime. 

Wonwoo pulls his arms closer to him, covering his chest, like it will hide away whatever he is feeling and Soonyoung will never find out. The fabric of his shirt creases. He clenches his hands into fists. None of this matters. Soonyoung keeps talking. Wonwoo shuts his eyes. 

**Author's Note:**

> i really like ghost aus but sadly i dont think i was able to portray this the way i wanted to. i wasnt sure if i wanted to post this but hashtag yolo (the irony lol) T__T i hope u liked this though! leave a comment if u did !! my [twitter](https://twitter.com/minsgsol) ~


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